


The Iron Spider

by Beyondthelimit8266



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst but also fluff, Multi, Peter is about 20 years old in this, Prosthetics, Romance, These boys in love, doesn’t follow Home-Coming very closely, this is pretty oc tbh, whoops it got angsty and violent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 11:48:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beyondthelimit8266/pseuds/Beyondthelimit8266
Summary: After a devastating battle, Peter is left missing three very important things - his innocence and two of his limbs. But with the help of Tony Stark and some very advanced science, perhaps Peter can pick up where he left off, and continue being the bad ass Spider-Man New York City loves. This time with some nifty prosthetics.





	The Iron Spider

**Author's Note:**

> This Fanfic is inspired by Spiderstan_’s great fan art on Instagram! Syglossy also has a fanfic based on this idea on Instagram, and I urge you to go check out both of them! (Btw, I asked permission to use this idea, and they both said yes. No plagiarism in this household)  
> I want to apologize for any typos or character inaccuracies. I’m not the brightest crayon in the box.

Peter wakes up slowly, like a sunrise. Light cresting over his closed eyelids and spilling into the valleys of his vision. Everything appears wet, smudged at the edges, and almost blindingly white. 

For a brief moment, he isn’t aware of anything.  
Until he is. The dull ache of his head. His drugged, and senseless body. The numbness of his right arm and left leg. 

The scent of the room is sterile and polluted with the weighted odor of antiseptic. 

Hospital, Peter thinks. I’m in a hospital? 

A soft sigh sounds throughout the room, coming from the right side of him, and Peter supposes he would have jumped if his body had the energy to. 

With what feels like too much effort, Peter cants his head to the side, and sees Tony, his Tony, stuffed into the uncomfortable looking hospital armchair, dead to the world. Peter studies his face, his ungroomed facial hair, the heavy bags under his eyes, the unwashed hair and clothes. 

How long have I been here? Peter thinks incredulously. He straightens his head and stares for a long moment at the ceiling, gathering his courage and whatever energy he might have hidden somewhere in his body. He then pulls his arms up and begins to weakly push himself into upright position. 

He then falls back down again.  
His head hits the pillow, and he stays there, gazing unwaveringly up at the unblemished snow white ceiling. His left arm feels immovable, heavy, and weighed down, but regardless, he drags it’s hand across the flat planes of his belly. His quivering fingers come to a brief pause at his right hip, then begin travelling up, up, and up. 

His eyes stay on the shockingly white ceiling as his fingers ghost over his laddered ribs, and his eyes stay on the ceiling - the stupid blinding hospital ceiling - as his fingers come to rest over the mountain of gauze bound tightly over his right shoulder. 

It’s gone. 

His right arm isn’t numb. 

It’s just… gone. 

Peter slowly closes his eyes, and breathes deeply in, and then out. 

He opens his eyes. Breathes.

In.

Out. 

Then he lifts his head - his ridiculously heavy goddamn head - and peers down his body at his left leg. 

It’s gone to. His eyes trace it’s halted shape under the hospital’s thin blanket. His hip, his thigh, then nothing. His thigh, then blank space, empty air, absolutely nothing. 

Peter breathes. 

In. 

Out. 

He lets his head drop to the pillow again. 

Okay. He thinks. Okay. Okay. 

He turns his head to Tony, gazing at him over his stunted shoulder. 

Peter’s lips feel dry and gummed together, and he has to pull them apart with a muted rip. His tongue darts out to try and wet them, but he finds that his mouth is painfully dry too.

“Tony,” He tries to speak. Even to his own ears, his voice is dry and grating and all too quiet. Tony doesn’t stir. Peter clears his throat as best he can, igniting an ache the seems to coat his entire windpipe. 

“Tony.” He croaks, and Tony groans, sighs, and opens his eyes. 

He peers at Peter blearily for a long moment, blinks, then murmurs, “Peter. You’re awake.” 

Tony then blanches, and quickly straightens himself out in the chair, banging his knee loudly on its wooden arm in process. He hardly appears to notice, though. “Peter! You’re awake!” 

Tony’s bright, if not hesitant, smile quickly morphs into an embarrassed frown. “Oh Pete, I’m sorry. I wanted to be here for you when you woke up.” 

Peter rasps, “You are.”  
Tony chuckles weakly, and pushes a hand through his disheveled hair. “Yeah, you know what I mean.” 

Peter tries his best at a smile, but it’s thin, wavering, and watery. However, Tony seems to notice his effort and beams down at him. He scoots the chair closer to bed and goes to grab Peter’s right hand. He comes to a halting stop, and Peter can see his face turn a deep red. Tony recovers quickly though, and instead grips the bars bolted to the edge of the bed. 

“How are you feeling?” Tony begins, but Peter gestures at his throat rather than responding. Tony understands quickly, and roots briefly about the room for a thin paper cup, which he fills with water from the facet in the far corner. He returns to Peter, looking embarrassed once more, and places the cup on the bedside table next to a lonely looking bed pan. 

“I’m sorry,” He says as he helps Peter shamble weakly into an upright position, “I should have had water already laid out.” 

Peter shakes his head and Tony hands him the paper cup. He grips the cup in his left hand- his only remaining hand - and tries to take a drink. However, his hand, he quickly finds, is trembling far too much. Water slops over the edge of the cup and wets the front of his hospital gown. 

Now it’s Peter’s turn to be embarrassed. He can feel his face heat up as Tony wordlessly takes the paper cup, places his hand on the nape of Peter’s neck, and helps him take a drink of water. They repeat the process three times before Peter feels ready to talk. 

“I’m… fine.” Peter says. “It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t.” 

Tony nods. They sit in silence for a moment, then Peter asks, “How long have I been here?” 

“Um, you’ve been here for about a week and a half. You’ve been out for all of it, though.” 

Peter swallows, nods, then, “Aunt May?” 

“She comes and sits with you every single day. Reads to you a lot. She’s at work right now, but I’ll call her and share the good news. She’ll rush right over.” 

Peter nods once more, and they sit in silence for another second, before Peter murmurs, “What… what happened?” 

Tony’s face contorts, like this is the question he’s been dreading. “Well, what do you remember?” 

Peter squeezes his eyes shut and tries to think. “Um… we went to the Vulture’s hideout- that, uh, abandoned construction site, right? And, uh, he attacked us. We thought he wouldn’t be there, we just wanted some evidence, but he was there, and he...” Peter pauses, then glances back over at Tony, who’s looking down at his hands, brow pinched and furrowed. “He destroyed your suit.” 

Tony barks out a laugh that sounds like it hurts. “Oh no, kid, he didn’t destroy my suit. Just put it out of commission. The repairs could be done in a week. Maybe less. But he did bust it up, and I couldn’t fly anymore.” 

“I remember that… you, uh, you fell. From high up, you fell.” 

“No, Peter. You caught me. Remember?” 

Peter blinks. “He had hit you on the head, and destroyed your suit’s blasters, and you were unconscious and you fell. I caught you, though. And I took you and I hid you… I hid you somewhere.”

Another hoarse, dry laugh, then Tony says, “A porta-potty, Pete. At the edge of the site.” He laughs again, rearing his head back, finding it genuinely funny, “The great Iron Man, tucked away in a porta-potty, while Spider-Man fights the fight.” 

Peter chuckles weakly, he can’t help himself. “At least you’re alive.” 

That sobers Tony quickly, and he swallows. “Yeah. I’m alive. Do you remember what happened after you hid me?” 

“I went back into the site, and he found me and… I don’t remember. We… what happened? What did he do to me?” 

Tony swallows, then locks eyes with Peter. “Pete, I wish I could tell you. When I got out of the damned porta-potty he had already dropped the building on you.” 

Peter blinks. “He- “  
“Brought the damn building down, yeah. They say he wiped out the scaffolding and you couldn’t get out in time.” 

“So the building crushed me?” 

“Yeah. Your leg was still attached when you got out, but just barely. And your arm, well…” 

“Well?”

“Well, you lost that in the building. Not to be gross, but it’s probably still there. It got crushed and you, uh, you…” 

“I?” 

“Now, I don’t know the specifics- I was in a porta-potty at the time, but the doctors say, uh, judging by the wounds on your arm, you, uh, just took a sharp piece of shrapnel and carved yourself out. They said you probably wouldn’t have lost the arm if you had just stayed put -you’d have a really bad break, no doubt, but, uh - they said you were in hurry to free yourself. Do you remember why?”

Peter swallows dryly. “No. Why?” 

“It was me. The doctors said that the most probable reason you unnecessarily amputated your own arm and ran on a leg that was more bone shard than bone through a collapsed construction site was because you saw Toomes headed for where I was hidden. And you panicked.” 

Tony’s face is bloodless and pale and he’s gripping the edge of the bed so tightly that his knuckles are white and shaking. “Peter, I’m.. I’m so…” 

Peter reaches his left arm to the edge of the bed and rests his hand atop of Tony’s. The trembling stops. “Tony,” Peter begins softly, “Don’t. I’d do it again. Always.” 

Tony lets out a quavering sigh, and he screws his eyes shut. They sit there together, entirely silent, for what seems like a long time.

Eventually, Peter whispers, “And Toomes? The Vulture? What happened to him?”

Tony sighs heavily, and grips Peter’s remaining hand in a grip that feels like a trap. He says, as though speaking an unforgivable truth, “You, uh, you killed him, Pete. Stabbed him in head. With a piece of shrapnel. He was buried four days ago.” 

Peter stares at Tony and Tony stares back. He releases Peter’s hand, and it’s pulled back and dropped onto the bed with a loose flop. 

“I think I might throw up.” Peter says softly. Tony nods, like he was expecting this, and goes to grab the bed pan from the table. Peter grips it close to his chest and gags. It comes from deep in his stomach, and though nothing comes up, it reignites every ache that whatever drugs the doctors pumped into him had managed to dull. He gags again and again, and is barely aware of Tony slowly patting his back. His eyes water and tears travel down his cheeks and dot his lap. 

Eventually, he calms down, and the gagging ceases, and he tosses the bed pan away. But the tears don’t stop or even slow. Not even when Tony whispers, “Oh, Pete,” and draws him close. Peter swipes at his eyes with the one hand he has left, and the tears continue, silent and unbroken.


End file.
